I think you were considerate to your customer for trying to save her money. Kudos on that.

But that being said, I think you should have shipped the package whole because the customer should be savy to what international charges are and she could have asked that you send it in two packages. I think it's the buyer's responsibility to know shipping and custom charges ahead of time.

Since she did not respond to your email in 24 hours, you should have shipped as ordered.

I agree with others that you shouldn't beat yourself up over this...you did what you thought was the right thing at the time, and there's something to be said about that.

Take care, Dani

To me, the key thing is that she did not respond to your e-mails. Therefore, my inclination would have been to send the un-cut yardage at the full rate. If you had done that, she would have had no right to complain. I understand your reasons and that you are not obliged to know all the import fee rigamarole for everywhere, but you had all legal & moral right on your side by sending it in one package. By doing it the way you did, you left yourselves vulnerable to the customer's displeasure.

Ooops, I need to add a p.s. I see in an earlier comment that the shipping price would have been $15.00 more than she had agreed to? I don't understand that, but that doesn't matter. It does change my response to your question. I would not have sent the fabric without getting further instructions from her.

You are wise to do this research to avoid a similar situation in the future.

I think the shipping was going to be more than authorized/expected? So the seller didn't have the funds to send it in one piece?

When I order over the net, it is MY responsibility to check that you have recieved my order, and to see if there are any issues. If I don't get off my behind and do this, then caveat emptor.
I purchased some printed T Shirts on line, and when I checked my order email, the seller wanted to know if I would accept another colour or wait 2- 3 weeks. It was a gift, so i chose another colour. If I hadn't checked, I would have waited, and been frustrated.
I think you did the right thing - it is a simple seam to sew it back to one big piece if that is what they wanted.
Thanks for asking us, and giving us the opportunity to talk about these things.

Sometimes when you think you are doing a good deed, it backfires on you, as in this case. It would have been safer to ship it as odered. Count this as a learning experience.
This does not mean I think you did the wrong thing, you did what you thought was best for the customer. But sometimes what we think is best for the customer, is not. So the learning experience is, do not think for the customer.

Usually, when I order online I receive an email saying they received my order, then I get an email saying it shipped. If I pay by PayPal, I get an email from them too. If I DON'T get the confirmation, I start email, calling or whatever to make sure they received it and if it was mailed.

I would not have shipped until I heard from her and than after tooooo much time had lapsed would of canceled her order.

Your web site is great, very easy to find what you want.

Since the Business sent an email to this person and she didn't respond I would have cancelled the order. Maybe she does this to other Businesses and expects them to refund some of her money, as a credit on her credit card. I'm not sure I would sell internationally, may be too hard to get paid, sometimes.

I think as a Business owner you did as good as you could.
You can't please all the people all the time. Period.

Being an International customer myself I don't think it is fair to say don't ship to us because of a problem with 1 customer. I buy 95% of my fabric from the US and never have any problems. I have bought enough to know that on some of my packages I will have to pay a little extra for the PO handling charges and GST but often I get packages with no extra charges. For example today I received 3 medium flat rate boxes and was only charged the extra charges on 2 of them. I have recently ordered from this lady's store and was aware of the limits in the envelopes when I placed the order. Maybe because I have received so many packages I always read the shipping information because I want to make sure that my fabrics come by USPS and not UPS as their customs charges are outrageous (Having learned the hard way once) I think that they did everything they could to contact the customer and I ordered from them because of all the good comments I read about them on this board. I have yet to receive my order but I just placed it recently. Anyone who buys from the US should familiarize themselves with the ins and outs of buying internationally before they do so and if they don't I feel that it is their problem when things go wrong not that of the business that tried so hard to contact her. Sorry I rambled on for so long.